Early into our vacation, like a day or so, something really weird happened.

Note: I’m going to respect my folks’ privacy and only tell the minimum of specific names and such.

While my dad was watching TV and his dog, Boomer (name has been changed for privacy), was lying on the floor by his side, I was in the kitchen, doing something that most probably involved food, when I heard a bark—then my dad calling me over.

When I get into the living room, my dad tells me that Boomer was just lying quietly on the floor, when he all of a sudden went upright…and stared at this painting that was on the living-room wall. Barked at it. When I came in, Boomer was no-kidding-up-on-the-couch with his forepaws, back straight as an arrow, nose angled directly into the painting. He was very agitated, did those doggy “whiny sounds,” and may have again barked. But, both my dad and I looked to each other (definitely amused…highly curious)…and to Boomer…and the painting.

What the hell?

Preserving the privacy of this artwork, all I’m going to say is that in the painting (that had been up on the wall for a while, maybe towards a year?), two dogs are depicted: Boomer, and another, Rin Tin (again, not its real name).

Rin Tin is deceased.

Boomer remained agitated and brought his nose right up to the painting, less than an inch away from it, again, his whole body straight as an arrow. I put one hand to the painting’s frame, while holding the other nearby Boomer’s face, in case he decided to lunge and/or bite at the frame or painting. Dad and I are chuckling and wondering what the heck was going on, when Boomer did the weirdest thing:

He stuck his nose directly to the depiction of Rin Tin, sniffed it for a second or two…then abruptly departed.

That was it.

He jumped off of the couch and came to us as if nothing had happened.

Dad and I are laughing and looking to ourselves, totally baffled (well, truth be told, I had an idea). For the rest of our near week and a half there, Boomer never paid anymore attention to Rin Tin’s painted image.

Okay, you know I’m about to get kinda weird, here, but here’s what I believe happened:

Rin Tin was my folks’ previous dog and had to be put to sleep (turns out we were there, visiting, my wife and I, and one of my brothers, Chris). I love animals, and am particularly fond of dogs. I miss Rin Tin, and the day we arrived on the current vacation two weeks ago, I was actually wondering if Rin Tin might make, well, an appearance, now that I was here. Rin Tin’s cremains are in an “urn” my dad made (which was what I’d seen that first day and got me to thinking about all this), and I made a point to go to it a couple times while there, and “reach out” to Rin Tin. After all, I reasoned, I had a really cool experience with my last dog, Mac, and wondered if I would have a similar experience with Rin Tin.

I really believe that Rin Tin had reached out to us to let us know she was there…and was just saying “Hi.” I had lots of fun with her. I just have a way with dogs…and dogs generally like (okay, love) me. And I couldn’t be there when she was actually put down. I feel this was her way of saying “hello” one more time to dad and me…meeting the “new fur”…letting us know that she’s still “around.” The only ones in the area were my dad, Boomer, and me.

That painting had been up on the wall for a long time, and Boomer had never reacted to it at all. What the heck else could it have been? What the heck could have possibly caused a dog to behave that way? He went right to Rin Tin’s image, not his own.

I was right there, with Boomer, at the painting when it happened, saw exactly where Boomer’s nose went—it was directly and unhesitatingly to Rin Tin’s image, not concerned with his own image at all. I’ve seen dogs bark at the TV, but never a static image like that, especially when the image had been around in the dog’s presence for a while, with no prior reaction to it.

There were three dogs in my life that meant a lot to me, and two had the same name (“Mac”; the other was “Crackers“). Two were from my childhood, the third, adulthood.

I lost the first “Mac” to a little sports car out in the country (where we lived) driven by a guy with his girl. He’d come around the bend and didn’t see Mac as he crossed the road. Mac–I swear to you–looked both ways just before he was slammed into. Out comes the little sports car. Next thing I know, Mac’s lying in a small puddle of his own blood in the middle of the road. Mac was a Black Lab and he’d accompanied my young teenage self on my bike to the Post Office, a short jaunt down the way. We were returning home. We’d buried him “up back,” and I put his favorite and well-chewed tree branch across his grave, in homage.

I don’t know exactly when it’d happened, but sometime later, at the top of the stairs in our house, I don’t know what I’d been doing, but I turned around and looked to the head of the stairs…and saw the butt and wagging tail of a Black Lab heading downstairs.

We hadn’t had another dog at that point.

I rushed to the head of the stairs…only to be met by empty steps.

In 2003, our 11-year-old Black Lab, Mac, died of bone cancer. He was my “Little Buddy,” and we did everything together. When I wrote, he sat at my feet. When I paced working on or reading my manuscripts out loud–he was there, eyeing me always with his big brown, caring, eyes. When I worked in the backyard, he followed me everywhere. Walked behind me when I mowed or sat and made sure I never missed a spot. Went with us on all our hikes.

When he died…I felt his spirit depart. Just as real as if I’d been hit. Or someone leaning on me had left. It was stark, jarring.

I didn’t think I’d cry–I was prepared, understood death as best as I could from my point of view–but I burst out in tears. Uncontrollably. Never saw it coming.

High Summer of 2006, I was out in the backyard, sweeping grass clippings off a sidewalk alongside a window. It was a bright, sunny day. As I worked past the window…in the window…was the reflection of a Black Lab following me.

I whipped around.

No dog.

I rushed back to the window to verify what I’d seen–the reflection of a dog behind me, or maybe just me and my broom at some weird angle–and held the broom back to where I’d had it, moving it back and forth where I’d had it…but no reflection behind me did it yield.

I was extremely surprised to see a dog behind me, because we no longer had a dog, and there were no dogs that size (at the time) around us.

I want others to visit and leave a personal “Just Plain Weird” or otherwise “esoteric” story or two about yourselves! For YOU to share weird things that have happened to you. Things that just didn’t “traditionally add up” in your lives. It can be large or small, doesn’t matter–but it has to be true. I’m not looking to pass judgement, may not even comment (unless asked!)…but I’d really like to bring up the “daily weird” into a more open forum in our lives. I believe we all have at least one or two things that have happened to us during the course of our existence that “just didn’t make sense” in the more traditionally viewed mindset most of us have been brought up in, or work in. I’d also prefer these stories to be more fun or curious.

That’s what ‘d like to see!

NOTE: I’m not looking to focus on the dark and negative, nor am I a “go-to” person to fix any such dark and negative experiences. I have no experience there and there are plenty of others out there who do have that experience. That is not the purpose of this site, so please respect that. The purpose of this site is to focus on the positive and constructive.

And–in the realm of the esoteric–I’m not considered any “great shakes.” I don’t speak, hunt, nor work with ghosts (though I have seen ghosts of two of my dead dogs…and some I know have actually heard a “ghost” of me!). I don’t channel (uh, that I know of…). Don’t interpret dreams (see my post and views on dream interpretation). Don’t paranormally consult. I don’t even make any claims that I’m more advanced than any of you out there. My only real claim is that I’m just like many of you out there…except I may be more aware of some of the weird that “happens” to us…am more open about it. I openly allow the “paranormal” to manifest in my life–but in constructive and positive ways, and I’m a proponent for others to be the same. Sure, many of you are like this too–so this might be more like preaching to the converted for those like you–but I really hope that each of us can be more open to the so-called “paranormal” in all our lives, to not fear it, even laugh at the humoursly strange things that sometimes happen to us (see The Grape)….

So, please, feel free to stop on by and conversate–even if it doesn’t necessarily match the current post. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kinds of cool things have happened to others out there, allowing each of you to acknowledge the esoterica in your lives, since we really don’t get a chance to do so in our so-called “normal society.” I would like this site to be a “safe place” to allow each of you to come and talk about things you might not otherwise be able to…without anyone passing judgement.

Looking forward to hearing from all of you!

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Do The Dead Dream? 2017 Best Book Awards Winner for Fiction: Short Stories